“How do you pay someone for 20 years?”: Folbigg’s big compensation question
<p>Since her <a href="https://www.oversixty.co.nz/news/news/kathleen-folbigg-pardoned-after-20-years-behind-bars" target="_blank" rel="noopener">release from prison</a>, Kathleen Folbigg has been the centre of a media frenzy, with networks battling it out to secure an exclusive tell-all interview.</p>
<p>Following a fierce bidding war, Seven Network has won the rights over Nine for the interview believed to have cost more than $400,000.</p>
<p>A source from Seven said the exclusive interview will be aired on the Sunday evening current affairs show, <em>7News Spotlight</em>.</p>
<p>Others have proposed the deal has cost the network close to $1 million.</p>
<p>The deal could see her on the list of select few Australians awarded seven-figure sums in light of their wrongful convictions, including Linda Chamberlain.</p>
<p>Chamberlain’s lawyer Stuart Tipple said Folbigg needs to be declared innocent and be given compensation for her years in prison, noting she had a solid case.</p>
<p>“The sad thing is all she can get is money, how do you pay someone for 20 years?” he said.</p>
<p>“And also, I think we need to reflect on an injustice just doesn’t affect Kathleen.</p>
<p>“I feel tonight very much for her husband and the father of those children and the injustice that just affects so many people, so many lives.</p>
<p>“I feel very, very badly for him tonight and I just think of the whole process of just how harmful it is to them and to our society and our confidence in the whole judicial system.”</p>
<p>Robyn Blewer, director of the Griffith University Innocence Project, noted two recent cases to illustrate how Folbigg could be compensated for her 7,300 days in jail.</p>
<p>West Australian man Scott Austic received $1.3 million in May 2023 on top of an earlier payment of $250,000 after serving nearly 13 years for murdering his pregnant secret lover.</p>
<p>He had sought $8.5 million after being acquitted on appeal in 2020.</p>
<p>Both payments were ex gratis, unlike David Eastman’s award of $7 million in damages by the ACT Supreme Court in 2019.</p>
<p>Eastman served almost 19 years over the 1989 shooting murder of federal police assistance commissioner Colin Winchester, where he was acquitted at a second trial.</p>
<p>"The difference is it was in ACT which has a human rights act and under that, there is an entitlement for compensation under human rights," Dr Blewer told AAP.</p>
<p>"Mr Eastman was then able to sue because there was a right to compensation.</p>
<p>"The court assessed his damages in the same way they would a tort ... the court went through every time he was injured.”</p>
<p>Like Austic, Chamberlain was awarded an ex grata or grace payment. She was awarded $1.3 million in 1992 which now equates to about $3 million.</p>
<p>Folbigg will need specific legal advice about whether a civil claim is possible due to NSW lacking a human rights act like that of the ACT.</p>
<p>Dr Blewer said she could become reliant on what the government was willing to pay.</p>
<p>"Twenty years is a substantial amount of time lost," she said.</p>
<p>"It might depend on the good grace of the NSW government."</p>
<p>No further steps can be taken until Folbigg’s lawyers obtain the final report of former Chief Justice Tom Bathurst.</p>
<p>An application to the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal to quash her convictions will likely follow.</p>
<p><em>Image credit: Facebook / Instagram</em></p>
